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Sunday, February 23, 2014

Annoying Slate Article Typology

I like Slate much of the time. But they do have their fair share of throwaway, barely-articles with link-bait-ey titles. Here's one: Spain Shouldn’t Change Its Mealtimes. We Should Change Ours.I thought it might provide some kind of scientific or at least economic justification for the title. It didn't. It was simply a brief, mildly opinionated love letter to late Mediterranean mealtimes. It would have been a reasonable okay blog post, but really doesn't rise to the level of a general-interest magazine article.

Or this: How to Biathlon-ize Every Winter Olympic Sport. I thought it might speak to how the biathlon combines to disciplines in a way that creates an exciting, real-time finish--no judging, no racing only against the clock--and offer creative suggestions for other sports doing the same. I couldn't quite imagine how, but I was intrigued . I should have known. No such serious thought was offered. Instead, it was predictable, one-joke riff on combining two unlike activities that might produce a slapstick-volatile combination. Again, reasonable for a post on a small blog, but not worth my click-attention on slate.